Old Rivals
by WhazzupPeeps
Summary: Kelly travels out of town one weekend to see her boyfriend David, but what happens when an old adversary of hers from high school comes back into the picture, nursing an old grudge against her for a perceived slight?
1. That Little Black Dress

**CHAPTER 1 - THAT LITTLE BLACK DRESS**

**In the first chapter of my previous fanfic "A Stoked Christmas", Lo, while she was talking with her mother about Kelly, mentioned that Kelly had once treated her poorly when she was first put on the Pirate Ship staff by her father because she initially had a perception of Lo based on an old schoolmate of Kelly's from her high school days, with whom she did not get along. **

**This newest fanfic, which expands on what Lo told her mother, will explore a little more into Kelly's past and reveal, in later chapters, some events that occurred in her life prior to the arrival of Reef, Fin and the rest of the groms at Surfer's Paradise, while also introducing a new antagonist (represented by a new OC), the aforementioned old rival of Kelly's, who comes back into her life just as she is beginning to grow in her relationship with her boyfriend David. Expect some drama to occur as a result of the reappearance of Kelly's old enemy.**

**The events of this fanfic take place roughly around the time of the events of "A Boy Named Leslie" in the _Stoked_ internal timeline.**

* * *

><p>On the seaplane travelling from Sunset Beach to Victoria early on Friday evening, Kelly was looking out the window by her seat toward Victoria as the plane approached the city, heading toward its destination at the seaplane terminal in Victoria's inner harbor. A few days earlier, she and her boyfriend, David Hughes, had talked about the possibility of her taking a trip down to Victoria one weekend to see him as he was about to board the seaplane to return home. After checking her funds and talking with David in a webcam chat the night before, she told him that she planned to take him up on his offer to head to his hometown to see him that weekend, which pleased him when he heard the news.<p>

As she watched the inner harbor get closer while looking out her window, Kelly was thinking about Surfer's Paradise and the staff she worked and roomed with there. Since she and David began dating, she had begun slowly building relationships with some of the junior staff, thanks to her efforts to change her once-unpleasant attitude and become a better person in order to impress David when she first met him at the hotel's Pirate Ship dining lounge while she was on duty. One of the benefits gained from her newfound, more pleasant personality taking root was the friendship she had formed with Fin, thanks to Fin teaching her and David how to surf the week before. She had also become more friendly to Emma as the result of a heartfelt chat the two girls had about David and his positive influence on her.

As well, while Kelly no longer treated Lo poorly as she had when the hotel owner's daughter first joined the Pirate Ship wait staff during grom initiation, she had only recently begun warming up to Lo when she learned from Fin that the rich girl had been secretly supplying the summer staff with better-quality food to replace the barely-edible garbage which day manager Bummer had been bringing in recent days. Since she had a low opinion of Bummer and little respect for him, Kelly began to gain a new respect for Lo and her own efforts to improve for the better since Kelly first met the Ridgemount clan over a year earlier when she began working at the hotel, so she promised not to say anything to Bummer about Lo's food switch. But while she enjoyed the new friendships she was making with most of the groms, as well as re-establishing her friendships with her fellow seniors, Kelly felt a sense of relief to be able to get away from Surfer's Paradise for the weekend, and especially from Bummer and his slavedriving ways.

When the seaplane finally landed and pulled up to the seaplane dock at the inner harbor, Kelly looked out her window and saw David walking on the dock toward the plane, waiting to greet her. Grabbing her suitcase from overhead storage, she then stepped off the plane and ran over to meet her boyfriend. "David, hi!" she said pleasantly as she put down her suitcase and greeted him with a big hug, then kissed him.

"Good to see you again in person, Kelly," David said after they finished kissing. "So how was the plane ride over?"

"It was okay," Kelly replied, "but I'm glad I'm here now and I'm happy you're here."

"Perfect," David said as Kelly picked her suitcase back up and they started walking, arm-in-arm, toward the seaplane terminal. "So, where are you staying for the weekend?"

"We won't have to go far to get there," Kelly said. "I'm using my Ridgemount Resorts employee's discount to stay at the Empress Hotel. Got a standard room booked there for tonight and tomorrow."

"Wow, pretty nice," said an impressed David of the Empress, one of the crown jewels of the Ridgemount Resorts hotel chain (aside from the flagship Surfer's Paradise) and one of the top hotels in Victoria. "That's one of the perks of working for a hotel chain." As he and Kelly arrived at his car in the parking lot, he then said, "What do you have planned for tonight?"

"I was thinking about staying in and either watching TV or surfing the Internet on my laptop at first, but I think you've got something in mind, don't you?" Kelly said with a sly glance and a flirtatious smile toward David.

"Now that you mention it, I do," David answered, returning the smile as he started his car.

* * *

><p>Over in Kelly's room at the Empress, Kelly was in the bathroom taking a shower and getting ready for an evening out with David, who was in the main room watching a Seattle Mariners baseball game on the room's widescreen TV in the meantime. Kelly had finished her shower after about 20 minutes, but another 20 minutes after that, she had not yet finished getting ready as she had to dry her hair, brush her teeth, put on a couple of spritzes of her favorite perfume and try on a dress she had bought to wear for David for her trip to Victoria.<p>

"You almost ready yet, Kelly?" David called from outside the bathroom.

"I'll be another couple of minutes," Kelly replied. "I need to look my best anyway 'cause I have a surprise I want to show you."

"Okay then," David said before he turned back to the baseball game while continuing to wait for Kelly.

After another five minutes, Kelly unlocked and opened the bathroom door just enough to poke her head out from inside. "All right, you all ready for my surprise?" she said to David with a smile.

"Can't wait to see what you got," David said. As soon as Kelly opened the bathroom door the rest of the way and stepped out, David's mouth opened in surprise when he saw her emerge wearing a slinky, form-fitting sleeveless black dress with one shoulder strap over her left shoulder and its hemline coming a couple of inches above her knees. "So, what do you think?" Kelly asked of her dress.

Looking Kelly's dress up and down, all David could manage was "Whoa."

Kelly giggled at David's reaction to the dress. "Yeah, that's what I thought," she commented. "I'll take that as an 'I like it'."

"Oh, I think 'I like it' would be understating it a bit," David said with a small chuckle. "Actually, I love your dress. It looks great on you, very dressy chic."

"Oh, well, thanks David," Kelly said with another smile as her cheeks blushed slightly. She then passed David her digital camera to take a picture of her with the dress so she could e-mail it to her friends back at Surfer's Paradise later. "So what do you have planned for us for tonight?" she then asked.

* * *

><p>David answered Kelly's question by taking her over to an all-ages dance club on Yates Street in the downtown area. Thanks to David knowing the club's owner, he and Kelly got in for free, thereby avoiding the lineup outside the front entrance. Once inside, the couple were quick to hit the dance floor, mixing their choice of tunes to dance to between the faster-paced electronica music and the more relaxing chillout music that David favored.<p>

At a table while resting in between dances, David asked Kelly, "What do you think of this place so far?"

"It's great," Kelly responded, feeling jazzed over the night she was having up to then. "I'm really having fun here."

"Glad you like it," David said. Moments later, a jazzy-sounding uptempo tune called "El Alba", flavored with Latin-influenced acoustic guitar, began playing in the club, catching his attention. "Hey, this one's one of my favorites," he said to Kelly. "Want to head back on the floor?"

"Sure," Kelly said eagerly as she and David took to the dance floor again. At that point during the song, all eyes in the club were on Kelly, and they watched with interest as the stunning girl with the dark red bob-cut hair in the black dress grooved to the rhythm of the song with the lucky guy she was with, whom she had stuck with exclusively from the moment they arrived at the club.

One pair of eyes, in particular, watched from the sidelines, eyeing Kelly with seething jealousy while watching her and David dancing on the floor. The girl in question, who had long, sandy-blonde hair and was wearing a red dress with a matching short jacket, had once known Kelly from their high school days in Kelly's hometown of Nanaimo, and her eyes narrowed in an angry scowl as she continued to watch the redhead.

_Like, what the hell's __**she**__ doing here?_, the blonde girl thought to herself while keeping her eyes on Kelly. _I thought I saw the last of her just a few months before graduation! And who does she think she is, getting all the attention out there - attention that __**I**__ should be getting myself!_ The blonde girl then clenched her fist on the table she was sitting at, fuming over being passed over for the attention she believed she deserved from the crowd at the club in favor of Kelly. _This is, like, just too much!_ she thought. _She's gonna pay for crossing paths with me again, and __**especially**__ for trying to steal __**my**__ thunder!_

* * *

><p><strong>So, what will the appearance of this mysterious blonde girl have in store for Kelly? Based on her reaction to Kelly's appearance at the dance club, she's not happy about it at all and she will have something to say about it. What does she plan to do about it? Check out the next chapter and find out.<strong>

**_Stoked_ (c) Fresh TV Inc. and Teletoon. I don't own the show or any of the characters except for my OCs.**

**Reviews and comments are welcome.**


	2. Haunted By the Past

**CHAPTER 2 - HAUNTED BY THE PAST**

**Business starts to pick up in this chapter as Kelly's old rival begins to make her presence felt later in. One of the Surfer's Paradise gang makes an appearance at the beginning of the chapter (see below) while talking via webcam with Kelly. One instance of language and a suspenseful moment near the end of the chapter, hence the T rating.**

* * *

><p>Back in her room at the Empress the following morning, Kelly was online on her laptop, having a webcam chat with Fin as they discussed the night out Kelly had with David the night before. When Fin asked what Kelly wore for her date that night, the Pirate Ship manager sent her the photo David had taken of her wearing her form-fitting little black dress. "Nice dress, Kelly," Fin said after seeing the dress on her own laptop and letting out a wolf whistle in reaction. "I can see why David dug it when he first saw it on you. Looks sexy, but classy at the same time."<p>

"Thanks, Fin," Kelly said. "That was David's reaction too, except without the whistle. How about you and the rest of the gang, though? Thanks to Bummer making you guys work weekends now, Surfer's Paradise must be feeling more like Surfer's Purgatory."

"Sure seems that way sometimes," Fin remarked. "We've got ways of getting around Bummer though, so I'm not worried. Oh, do you wanna hear a new way you can get under Reef's skin that I just found out?"

"Sure," Kelly said. "I've never needed much reason to give him a piece of my mind."

"Okay," Fin said with a fiendish grin on Kelly's laptop screen. "Next time Reef bugs you or acts like a kook around you, just tell him 'Don't be such a Leslie'!"

"Leslie?" a puzzled Kelly asked, raising an eyebrow. "I don't get it."

"That's Reef's real first name," Fin explained. "His mom told me about it. She's been here at the hotel since early this week, visiting Reef from Muskoka. She's been helping us get the 'Roach Motel' cleaned up, she baked chocolate chip cookies for the staff and Lo and I did her hair while she told us stories about 'Little Leslie'!"

Kelly began to laugh a little at Fin's tale about Reef's real name. "So what did his mom tell you?" she asked.

"When she came here," Fin began, "she brought Reef his stuffed pig that he had since he was a kid. I also found out he used to have butt rash because his mom checked him in the lobby to see if that rash was gone, and she told me and Lo while we did her hair that Reef used to wet his bed! She even showed us a photo of him back when he had braces and a bad haircut, which she put on his surfboard before she brought it out to him!"

Kelly was now laughing heartily and holding her sides as she listened to Fin's story. "Man, I would've paid big bucks to see Reef's reaction when he got his board back with that picture," she said.

"I would've too, sister," Fin said. "And that whole 'Don't be a Leslie' thing's catching on with the staff now since I started using his real name to mean the same thing as a loser or a squid. So now you know what to say to Reef if you ever need to."

"I'll keep that in mind," a still-laughing Kelly said. Just then, a knock came on her guest room door, which she had been expecting. "Excuse me a sec, Fin," she said as she got up from her chair to get the door. After checking the peephole, Kelly opened the door and let David in. "Hi, David," she said, greeting him with a small kiss before she returned to the desk where she had her laptop. "I was just chatting with Fin online when you came. She's on the webcam right now."

"Hey, Fin," David greeted the blonde tomboy as he put himself into the laptop webcam's view. "What's new?"

"Hey, David," Fin returned the greeting. "There's a lot that's new, but I'll let Kelly tell you about it. You guys got plans?"

"You bet," Kelly said. "David's taking me surfing at the beach at Beacon Hill Park just south of downtown, but I have to buy a new bikini first because I didn't bring mine along when I came here last night because I hadn't planned on going surfing until he offered to take me."

"Hey, cool," Fin said. "I heard conditions there today are just right to go hit the waves, so you're in luck. You both keeping in practice?"

"I try to catch a wave or two after work whenever it's possible," David reported. "And thanks again for those surfing lessons, Fin. They've stuck with me ever since you taught me and Kelly last time I was at the hotel."

"Anytime you want more lessons, David, just ask me and bring Kelly along," a pleased Fin told him.

* * *

><p>Not long after finishing her webcam chat with Fin, Kelly went with David to Huntington Place, a downtown shopping mall on Douglas Street named for its main anchor tenant, Huntington's Department Store. Upon arrival, the couple went to the mall's lower level to window shop in front of a few stores, including in front of a swimwear store.<p>

"See anything you like so far, Kelly?" David asked as he and Kelly examined some bikinis and one-piece suits in the swimwear store's window display.

"_Hmm_, there's some stuff here that looks promising," Kelly said, "but we'd have to go inside and see what else they have." As she continued looking at the window display, Kelly suddenly caught sight of something in the window's reflection, spotting what appeared to be a girl with long blonde hair standing in the distance just to her left, looking back at her. Thinking she was seeing things, Kelly blinked a few times, then looked in the reflection again and saw that the girl was gone, then turned around and saw no one resembling who she thought she had seen in the reflection.

Noticing Kelly turn around abruptly, David asked her, "Kelly, is something wrong?"

"Oh, no, it's nothing," Kelly replied as she turned back to David, not wanting to say anything to worry him. "I just thought I saw someone I knew. You want to head inside the store now?"

"Sure, let's go," David agreed as he and Kelly went into the swimwear store, but as they stepped inside, Kelly still had a nagging suspicion about what she thought she had seen in the window reflection.

* * *

><p>A few minutes later, Kelly and David emerged from the swimwear store with Kelly carrying a shopping bag containing two bikinis she had bought. "Oh, this one's going to look great when we go surfing," she said as she pulled out the first bikini, which had teal and white horizontal stripes, to look at.<p>

"Yeah, and that tartan bikini you also got looks good too," David said.

"It's going to be hard to decide which one I should wear when we head over to Beacon Hill Park," Kelly said as she put the first bikini back in her shopping bag. "Before we head there though, we should go rent a couple of boards. There's a shop not far from here that deals in surfboard rentals..."

As she was talking, Kelly was suddenly caught by surprise when a thick pink liquid came down on her head from above, splashing on her red sleeveless top. Some of the liquid ended up splashing on David's teal polo shirt as well. Gasping in shock after she was hit, Kelly snapped "What the...?", then looked up above her to the mall's upper levels to see who the culprit was.

David checked what kind of liquid had splashed onto him and Kelly, sniffing the right sleeve of his shirt where some of the pale pink stuff had landed. "Strawberry milkshake, that's what I figured," he said to Kelly.

"_Ooohh_, now I'm a mess!" a chagrined Kelly complained. "If this was some kid's idea of a practical joke, I'm not laughing!"

"C'mon, let's head for the washrooms and get cleaned up," David offered as he and Kelly began to walk in that direction.

"Now I'll have to get my top washed because of this," Kelly said. "And I'll have to go buy another one to wear afterward because I can't wear this one now." As she and David approached the public washrooms, Kelly began to think back to a time when a similar incident had happened to her during the first week of her senior year at her high school in Nanaimo just months earlier, which had both humiliated and angered her, and the incident that just happened in the mall moments ago started raising suspicions in her as to who did it.

Meanwhile, watching from a rail at the edge of the second level of the mall overlooking the lower level's centre court, the blonde girl who had been at the dance club watching Kelly the night before threw a milkshake cup into a nearby waste bin as she watched Kelly and David head for the washrooms. "_Heh-heh-heh_, worked like a charm," she said smugly with a malevolent chuckle and an evil grin. "Hope you enjoyed that milkshake, Kelly. This is only the beginning."

* * *

><p>Although Kelly did not see who had dumped the milkshake over her head from the mall's second level, she was left with no choice but to buy herself another top to wear thanks to the drink messing up the red top she was wearing. After she finished cleaning the remnants of the milkshake off of her in the women's washroom, she and David went off to Huntington's so she could find the kind of top she wanted.<p>

"I'm going to look for a new suit over in the men's wear section," David said to Kelly as he dropped her off by the women's change room after she picked out several tops, all of which were on sale at half-off regular price, to try on. "You'll be okay here after that milkshake incident outside earlier, will you?"

"I'll be fine," Kelly reassured David. "And take your time, I'm not in any hurry to choose a top."

"Okay, cool," David said. "If you're done before I am, meet me in men's wear and we'll head up to the Huntington's Café on the top floor for lunch, or I'll come pick you up if I'm done first."

After David left, Kelly ventured into the women's change room and into one of its stalls to try on the collection of tops she had brought in with her. Before entering her chosen stall, she left her shopping bag with the two bikinis she had bought on a chair just outside the stall door.

After several minutes of trying on the tops, Kelly decided on one she liked, a short-sleeved red top, then she stepped back out and prepared to take the other tops back to their racks. As she picked up her bikini shopping bag from the chair, however, she noticed something on the side of the bag and raised it up to see what it was. To her horror, what she saw on the bag caused her to drop it and the tops she was carrying on the floor. Coming down with a panic attack, Kelly was forced to sit down on the chair as she began hyperventilating and her hands shook. Once she settled down and began breathing normally again, she took her cell phone from her cargo shorts pocket and called David's number on speed dial. "David, come back to women's wear, quick," she said in an upset-sounding tone once David answered. "I need you."

Kelly had gathered up her bag and the tops and emerged from the women's change room just as David arrived. "Kelly, are you okay?" he asked his girlfriend out of concern. "You sounded upset over the phone."

"Take a look at this," Kelly said as she handed David her shopping bag, indicating what was on the side of the bag she saw that had spooked her. David looked at the side of the bag and was astonished to find, written in coral-colored lipstick, the word "WHORE" in capital letters. "How did this get on here?" David wondered aloud as he showed Kelly the written slur against her again.

"I don't know," Kelly, still feeling uneasy after the incident, said about the bag. "It wasn't on there when I went into the change room earlier and I left it on the chair outside my stall. I didn't even hear anything going on outside because of the background music playing in the store." After seeing the word written on the bag, Kelly had flashed back to another such incident in high school during her senior year, when she found that same word written on the door of her hallway locker as part of a smear campaign against her by a clique of so-called "popular" girls at her school.

"Well, whoever did this must've used the background music as a cover to sneak in quietly, write this on your bag and then leave without you knowing," David said. Putting his hand on Kelly's left arm to calm and reassure her, he added, "If you don't feel safe here, we should take what you want to buy and pay for it so we can get out of here. We can always grab lunch someplace else."

"Sure, good idea," Kelly said with an uneasy smile as she and David went off to return the other tops to their racks and take the top she wanted to a checkout counter to pay for it. "I'm gonna need some fresh air anyway after this."

From another part of the women's wear department, after Kelly paid for her new top at the checkout and then went with David out the store's third level entrance into the main mall and toward an elevator, the blonde girl, who had managed to stay out of Kelly and David's sight among racks of clothes, watched the couple leave Huntington's, then took a look at the coral-colored lipstick she was brandishing and snickered in satisfaction. "Nice work, real smooth," the blonde girl said to herself. "By the time I'm done with you Kelly, I'll have you so messed up you won't know which way is which. I am _sooo_ gonna enjoy playing you like a violin again like I did back in school."

* * *

><p><strong>Coming up, what does the blonde mystery girl have in store next as Kelly and David hit the waves for a surfing session?<strong>


	3. Thanks for Dropping In

**CHAPTER 3 - THANKS FOR "DROPPING IN" - NOT!**

**You'll see why I chose this chapter's title as you read on. Just when Kelly and David are about to enjoy their surfing session, Kelly's archrival is about to make her presence felt with a few more dirty tricks.**

* * *

><p>After leaving Huntington Place and going to a nearby surf shop to rent surfboards, Kelly and David went off to Beacon Hill Park for their surf session. After stopping first for a lunch of soup and sandwiches at a coffee house near the beach, the couple then grabbed their boards and, after getting changed in change rooms close by, headed out to hit the surf. David had on the black boardshorts with blue and green patterns he had worn when Fin first taught him to surf, while Kelly chose to wear the tartan-patterned bikini she had bought at the mall.<p>

"Alright, you all ready to do this?" Kelly asked David as they waded into the water with their boards. "I want to see how far you've come since our lesson with Fin."

"We'll find out soon enough," David said as he began to paddle out on his board toward a forming wave. Once he reached the wave, he popped up on his board, rode along the wave face effortlessly and coasted back toward the shore where Kelly waited for him. "Okay, I'm not up to the point where I'm doing tricks yet, but I think I'm doing all right for a relative rookie," he admitted with a grin.

"Are you kidding?" an impressed Kelly said. "As good as your first surf was back at Surfer's Paradise, this one you did was even better. If you take up Fin's offer for another lesson next time you're at the hotel, she could show you how to do tricks easily."

"I just might do that," David agreed. "But now I'd like to see how far along you are with your surfing skills."

"Sure," Kelly said, then she started paddling out. "Wish me luck." Once she reached her wave, she got to her feet on the front half of her board and, tapping into her ballet training, she did a _pirouette_ on the board, then finished out in a graceful _arabesque_ pose with her right leg extending behind her body and her supporting left leg and foot on _demi-pointe_, all the while keeping her balance on the board as it skimmed along on the water.

David was surprised to see Kelly use ballet moves as part of her surfing trick. "Whoa," he said in amazement as he watched Kelly hold her _arabesque_ pose. "Have you been holding out on me, Kelly? That looks incredible!"

"Just something I worked on in my spare time," Kelly said with a smile, "with a little encouragement from Fin."

"Well, thanks to having more time to train with Fin, that gives you the edge so far," David said. "What else did she show you?"

"Give me a sec and I'll show you," Kelly said as she cut back and started for the next wave. Before she was able to attempt another trick though, another surfer dropped in on Kelly and cut in front of her, causing a startled Kelly to wipe out on the wave, then resurface sputtering water moments later as she grabbed her board.

Catching the errant surfer in the act of violating the Surf Code by dropping in on Kelly, David got off his board and began running toward the kook, who grabbed his board as soon as he reached the shore and bolted from the scene the second he saw David coming. "HEY! Get back here!" David yelled toward the kook, who managed to keep ahead of him despite carrying his board with him. Ending his chase after the kook, David turned and headed back into the water to check on Kelly.

"You okay, Kelly?" a concerned David asked as he reached his girlfriend. "I saw what that guy did to you when you caught that next wave. He had no business cutting you off like that. You could've been hurt out there because of him."

"It's okay David, I'm alright," Kelly assured him. "No harm done. I just didn't see him coming 'til it was too late."

"Well, as long as you're fine," David said before letting out a frustrated sigh. "I still wish I could've caught that guy so I could set him straight about the Surf Code for dropping in on you." He then looked out for a moment toward the waves breaking near the beach before he turned back to Kelly and smiled. "How'd you like to take the next wave together?" he asked.

Kelly's expression, which had turned to anger as she thought about what the kook had done to her moments earlier on the water, then softened and she gave David a smile. "Sure, I'd love to," she replied without hesitation.

David then began paddling out to another oncoming wave, with Kelly following not far behind. As soon as the couple reached the wave, David popped up on his board - but was then caught by surprise when the board unexpectedly broke in two under his feet, causing him to plunge into the water. The momentum from the board breaking under David's weight sent the back end of the board flying toward Kelly, who was unable to dodge it in time before the flat side of the board smacked into her, knocking her backward onto her board, which also broke in two as she landed on it butt-first.

David managed to quickly resurface from under the water and he looked around, but could not find Kelly. "Kelly, no!" he said, concerned for his girlfriend's safety, before he went back under to look for her. David did not have to look far before he found a nearly-unconscious Kelly slowly sinking, then he grabbed her and quickly swam for the surface and back for the shore with her. As soon as David carried her onto the beach and set her down on the sand, Kelly came around and started coughing up water, then caught her breath and saw David kneeling over her as he cradled her in his arms.

"Oh, David, thank you," a grateful Kelly said as she regained her sense of where she was. "I don't know what happened after that piece of surfboard hit me."

"You got knocked out and went under for about half a minute," David explained. "I'm just glad I was able to get to you and that you're okay. What I can't figure out though is why my board broke right when I popped up on it." Just then, the broken remains of both surfboards washed up on shore beside Kelly and David, who then grabbed the front end of his board to examine where it broke.

"Okay, this is weird," David said after a few moments of examining his board. "Right at the point where my board broke, it looks like it was cut about halfway through with something sharp. I can see a smooth edge at the break point."

Kelly then grabbed the back end of her board, which had washed up beside her, to check out the damage. "Same with mine," she said as she took a close look at the break point on her board. "It's been cut partway through too." Beginning to look worried, she then said to David, "I'm getting scared, David. Do you think that whoever wrote on my shopping bag back at Huntington's might have followed us here and tampered with our surfboards too?"

"I can't say for sure," David said. "If whoever messed with the boards was targeting you, they might not have known which board was yours, so they worked on both boards just to cover their bases. In any case, this is starting to get serious. We should get out of here, just to keep you safe."

"I know," Kelly agreed as she put her right arm around David's shoulders and her left hand on his left arm, just to feel a bit more secure. "But I'd really like to get to the bottom of all this," she added, her suspicions about who was after her becoming stronger than before.

* * *

><p>In the meantime, over by the change rooms some distance from where Kelly and David were on the beach, the kook who had dropped in on Kelly and made her wipe out earlier approached a picnic table where someone was hiding. The lurker popped her head up from behind the top of the table, revealing herself as the blonde girl who had been stalking Kelly at the mall. "So how'd I do over there with that betty?" the kook asked.<p>

"You did great," the blonde girl, who was now wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat and sunglasses to disguise herself, replied in a hushed tone. "She never saw it coming 'til it was too late."

"I dunno if I shoulda done that though," the kook said. "Droppin' in on another surfer's a good way to become a pariah to other surfers."

"Do I look like I care?" the blonde girl said dismissively. Taking some money from her purse, she then handed the kook $100 in twenties. "Here you go, that should be worth it for an easy day's work," she said as the money exchanged hands.

"Whoa, epic!" the kook remarked as he checked out the money. "Thanks, dudette!" he said right before he left with his surfboard.

A moment later, the blonde girl then walked over to a garbage can near the change rooms and fished out another object from her purse. She had convinced the kook to use the item in question, a length of thin copper cable, to score a deep groove into the middle of each of Kelly and David's surfboards while the couple were in the coffee house. As David had speculated, the blonde girl did not know whose surfboard was Kelly's, so she took care of both boards to play it safe. "_Heh-heh,_ now that was money well spent," she said to herself with a smug grin as she threw the coiled-up cable into the trash can. "Too bad about your boyfriend being collateral damage, Kelly, but it was worth it just to put you in your place again." Looking out toward where David was tending to Kelly on the beach, the blonde girl then smirked as she crowed, "This party's just getting started, though."

* * *

><p><strong>Next, will Kelly finally catch her old rival in the act as the blonde girl tries to cross the line by attempting to take what is Kelly's?<strong>


	4. When the Line Gets Crossed

**CHAPTER 4 - WHEN THE LINE GETS CROSSED**

**Things get a little more intense in this chapter when Kelly finally gets pushed too far by her old high school rival (who is finally identified here) and is forced to confront her. Some of what happens here is a twist on the events that occurred in the fancy restaurant in Sunset Beach in "A Boy Named Leslie", except with the blonde girl subbing for Lo (and Emma) and with Kelly as the hero instead of the villain. A warning of some language and a bit of violence near the end.**

* * *

><p>Because Kelly and David's rented surfboards had been destroyed thanks to the sabotage job done on them at Beacon Hill Park, David had to pay to get them replaced when he returned the remains of the boards to the downtown surf shop where he and Kelly got them. After taking a tour through the Royal BC Museum and then taking a walk along the inner harbor near the Ridgemount Empress and the Parliament Buildings, the couple then went back to Douglas Street for dinner at a casual dining restaurant called the Ocean Blue.<p>

"I've never been to eat here before, David," Kelly said as she checked out the inside of the restaurant once she and David were shown to a booth near a window with a street view. "This place looks great."

"Wait'll you check out the menu," David said. "And I'll even give you a little good news - no calamari on our menu either," he added jokingly.

"Very funny," Kelly remarked with a dry look toward David. "Wait a minute...did you say 'our' menu?"

"Sure did," David replied. "My dad's company owns this restaurant. He also owns a few other businesses around town."

"Cool," Kelly said before she placed an order of orange juice to drink from the waitress serving her and David. "Which one of them are you working at?"

"Oh, he's got me interning here and there at all of them, just to show me the ropes," David explained. "He even has me working the control room at that TV station he has an ownership stake in."

"Isn't that the same station that its employees and a few investors bought last year?" Kelly asked.

"The same one," David confirmed. "They bought the station after the previous owner almost ran it into the ground through mismanagement and some bad program choices." Looking over to the restaurant entrance, David then spotted someone familiar, appearing well-dressed in a three-piece business suit, coming in as a waitress greeted him. "And speaking of my dad, here he comes," he said. "I told him about you after we first started dating and he's wanted to meet you since then."

David's father, a man in his mid-40s about the same height as him, with short dark hair with a bit of gray in it and who, like his son, was quite handsome, saw David and Kelly at their table and smiled as he walked over to greet them. "Hey son, I didn't expect to see you here tonight," Mr. Hughes said when he arrived.

"I knew you'd be coming by sometime tonight because there's someone I want you to meet, Dad," David said. "This is Kelly, the girl I met in Sunset Beach a few weeks ago. Kelly, meet my dad, Daniel Hughes."

"Hi, Kelly," Mr. Hughes greeted Kelly, shaking her hand. "So you're the girl who's swept my boy off his feet."

"Yeah, that's me," Kelly said with a giggle.

"David's talked a lot about you since he first met you," Mr. Hughes followed up. "He told me you work for Mr. Ridgemount, managing a restaurant at his Sunset Beach hotel."

"Yep, I do," Kelly said. "He promoted me when I returned there a few weeks ago after I waitressed there last summer. After this summer, I'm going to college in my hometown to take a restaurant management program."

"Good, I'm glad to hear that," Mr. Hughes responded. "So, how about I show you around the restaurant? Our kitchen's state of the art, much like what the restaurant you're managing in Sunset Beach has."

"_Hmm,_ sounds cool," Kelly said as she began to follow Mr. Hughes and David to the kitchen. "So how do you know Mr. Ridgemount, anyway?"

"That's kind of a funny story," Mr. Hughes began explaining as the group slipped through the kitchen doors. "He and I met when we were serving in the same army unit..."

While Kelly, David and Mr. Hughes were busy touring the kitchen, an unexpected visitor showed up inside Ocean Blue when the blonde girl, who was still stalking Kelly, seized her opportunity and popped in after discreetly watching her and David from outside the eatery for a few minutes. After being seated at a booth and getting a menu from her waitress, the blonde girl looked around the restaurant and, after making sure the coast was clear (as it was not busy inside at that point), got up and walked over to the booth where she knew Kelly and David were sitting. Reaching into her purse, she withdrew a small bottle and opened it, poured half its contents into Kelly's glass of orange juice, then stirred the juice with a coffee stir stick to mix the other liquid in, then put the bottle back in her purse and walked back to her booth, confident that no one had seen her commit the dirty deed. _Oh, I can't wait to see how Kelly reacts when she takes a gulp of that stuff,_ the blonde girl thought to herself with a smirk as she sat back down and picked up her menu, partly hiding her face behind it but peering over its top edge to continue spying. _Better make sure I have my phone camera handy to film the festivities when it goes down_.

* * *

><p>After finishing her tour of the restaurant kitchen, Kelly returned with David to their booth and they grabbed their menus to look over what to order. "I'm pretty impressed with what your dad has in the kitchen," Kelly told David before picking up her glass to take a couple of gulps of her orange juice. "He wasn't kidding when he said it was state of the art."<p>

"For sure," David agreed. "He has another restaurant like this one up at the new Uptown development in Saanich that just opened not long ago. Next time you're here, I could take you there for dinner."

"If it's as good a place as this one looks like, then I'm in," Kelly said as she sipped again from her glass of juice.

"Trust me, it is," David said confidently before he returned to poring over his menu. "Let's see...the chicken fingers look pretty good, I just might get that tonight with a salad."

"Sounds good," Kelly said. "Oh, nice! They've got Thai chicken salad on here too. I think I'll..." Before she could finish speaking though, Kelly's stomach began to rumble and she felt a little nauseous.

"Umm...was that you?" David asked when he heard the rumble, then he noticed Kelly was looking like she felt at that point. "You look a bit queasy right now."

"I thought something was a bit off about the orange juice when I..." Kelly spoke, but again, she did not finish her comment before her stomach rumbled again, then she felt a sudden wave of nausea come on as she gagged twice and put her hands over her mouth before jumping up suddenly to bolt for the women's washroom.

Back at her own booth, the blonde girl watched the events unfolding close by at Kelly and David's booth and snickered to herself, pleased at the success of the latest part of her evil scheme to target Kelly. _Oh yeah, just like I planned it,_ she thought to herself with a grin as she watched Kelly run for the washroom. _Kelly will be tied up in the can for a while, so now to work a little more magic._

Meanwhile, David wondered what had caused Kelly to suddenly become sick and head for the washroom as he examined the glass of orange juice she drank from. Sipping from the glass as he helped himself, he detected an odd taste to the juice and immediately spat it back out into the glass. "_Ugh,_ what's in this stuff?" David asked himself as he put a napkin over the glass to make sure Kelly did not drink from it again once she returned.

A moment later, the blonde girl walked up to David's booth to get his attention. "Hi, sorry to bother you. I saw what happened with your friend a moment ago, is she okay?" she asked David, pretending to show concern over Kelly's reaction to drinking the tainted orange juice.

"I hope she is," David answered. "I think it's got something to do with this orange juice she ordered," he said as he looked over to the half-full glass now covered by the napkin. "There was this weird taste to it when I took a sip from it."

"Maybe that juice went bad or something," the blonde girl said. "It's been known to happen."

"Maybe, but not here," David said. "I eat here regularly and the fruit juices here are always served fresh. I know the owner and he makes sure that everything served here is fresh, that's how I know," he explained, not mentioning that the owner also happened to be his father.

"Ah, okay," the blonde girl said. "I don't mean to doubt you, but sometimes those things can happen." After a brief pause, she then introduced herself to David. "My name's Rebekka, by the way," she said to him with a handshake. "It's spelled with two K's, in case you're wondering."

"Hi, Rebekka with two K's," David said with a chuckle, keeping things light. "I'm David."

"So if you've eaten in this place before, then I guess you must, like, live around here too," Rebekka said, making an attempt at small talk as part of a plan she had to make a move on David and get him away from Kelly.

"I do," David replied. "Been here all my life, in fact."

"Nice," Rebekka said. "I used to live in Nanaimo until I graduated high school last month, but now I'm splitting time between here and Whistler."

"I see," David said. "Are you planning to go to college after summer vacation?"

"Not right away, no," Rebekka, who then began directing a flirtatious look David's way, explained. "I'm going to take a year off and travel around first, do a little jet-setting. Great way to de-stress from the academic life, don't you think so?"

"Yeah, I guess," David said. "I like having a good balance though. Having fun's nice and all, but a good education's important too, especially if you want a good job down the line." He then checked his watch, wondering what was keeping Kelly in the washroom. "My friend should be getting back from the washroom soon," he told Rebekka. "I should go and find out how she's doing in there. Excuse me a minute while I get one of the waitresses to check on her."

As David got up, Rebekka put her right hand on David's left to keep him from leaving. "Wait David, what's the rush?" she said to him. "If she's doing all right in there, she should be back, like, soon. I sure wouldn't mind talking with you a bit more in the meantime, though." David looked down at Rebekka's hand on top of his, then looked over to her and began wondering if there was something more going on than what the blonde girl he had just met was letting on.

* * *

><p>Meanwhile in the women's washroom, Kelly had just emerged from a toilet stall after puking twice as a result of drinking the spiked orange juice. Still feeling a little uneasy, she walked over to a sink, turned on the cold water tap and filled her cupped hands with water to sip from and rinse out her mouth to get rid of the taste of vomit. After that, she took a pack of spearmint gum out from her right cargo shorts pocket and popped a stick of it into her mouth to chew on and help settle her stomach.<p>

"I don't know what was up with that orange juice I drank, but now my stomach feels like crap," Kelly said to herself as she put one hand on her stomach and the other on her chest. "But as long as the gum stops my stomach from doing flip-flops, I think I'm good." After taking a few more moments to compose herself, Kelly then stepped out of the washroom and started back toward her booth.

Upon stepping out the washroom door, however, Kelly was greeted by the sight of someone she had not seen in months, her mouth dropping open and her eyes going wide as she recognized the blonde girl sitting and talking, as well as flirting, with David. After the initial shock passed, Kelly's eyes narrowed into an angry glare as she finally realized who was behind the earlier incidents at Huntington Place and at Beacon Hill Park.

Back at Kelly and David's booth, Rebekka was continuing to chat with David in her attempt to win him over. "So anyway," she asked with another flirtatious glance, "what're you doing after supper tonight?"

By this time, David was getting wise to Rebekka's attempts to come on to him. "Okay, I see where you're trying to go here," he told her politely. "Sorry, but I'm not interested. You know my friend who you saw run off to the washroom earlier? Well, I'm already dating her."

"Really?" Rebekka said, pretending to be hurt by David's statement. "Look, not to horn in on your friend's territory, but what's wrong with wanting to hang out with someone...especially someone like you?"

"He said he wasn't interested!" a female voice said curtly, which caught Rebekka's attention as she turned to find Kelly standing right in front of her, glaring at her with her hands on her hips.

Needing to act fast, Rebekka let out a gasp of mock surprise. "Why, Kelly! Long time, no see!" she said in an insincere tone, trying to pull a fast one on her old high school rival. "I had no idea you'd be in town. So, how've you been?"

"Cut the act, Rebekka!" an unimpressed Kelly said flatly. "I know what you've been up to."

"Kelly, you know this girl?" David asked, wondering what was going on.

"Yeah, she does," Rebekka jumped in before Kelly could answer. "But really, Kelly," she added as she turned to the redhead, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"She's Rebekka Drake," Kelly explained to David. "I knew her from my high school in Nanaimo. She used to be the leader of a clique of stuck-up rich girls at school, but right now, she and I are gonna have a little talk about the stuff that happened to me earlier today," she said before she grabbed Rebekka by her left arm, yanked her from the booth and marched her toward the women's washroom.

"Ow, stop it!" Rebekka complained as Kelly forcibly escorted her to the washroom. "You're hurting my arm!"

"Your arm's the least of your problems right now," Kelly told Rebekka as she opened the washroom door and sent the queen bee inside first, then followed her in. Once inside, Kelly walked slowly with a purpose toward Rebekka, who backed away toward a wall between the toilet stalls and the sinks. "I figured you were the one pulling all that crap on me behind my back before," Kelly said, "and as soon as I saw you here, I knew I was right."

"Seriously?" Rebekka retorted, trying to deny any wrongdoing. "Wow, Kelly, paranoid much?"

"Paranoid this," Kelly said matter-of-factly while Rebekka smirked at her. "You dumped a milkshake over my head from an upper level at Huntington Place, you followed me to the change rooms inside Huntington's and used lipstick to write 'whore' on my shopping bag while I was inside a change stall, you sabotaged my and my boyfriend's surfboards at Beacon Hill Park and almost made me drown because of it, and then you spike my drink with something to make me sick so you could get me out of the picture and move in on my boyfriend...and all of it happened after I thought I saw you in a store window's reflection at the mall!"

Rebekka rolled her eyes at Kelly's accusation. "_Pfft_, what-_everrr!_" she said sardonically. "You still have no proof to back up what you're blaming me for. Well, maybe you're right about me and your boyfriend, but you still have nothing else on me!"

"Oh, really?" Kelly said. "We'll see about that!" She then grabbed Rebekka's purse, which she had taken with her into the washroom, snatched it away and emptied its contents onto the shelf between two of the sinks.

"Hey, give that back!" Rebekka snapped indignantly at Kelly. "You have no right to snoop in my stuff!"

Among the personal items from Rebekka's purse that were now on the sink shelf, Kelly found a small bottle with a label on it that read "syrup of ipecac". "So I have no proof, huh?" Kelly said with a raised eyebrow as she showed Rebekka the incriminating evidence. "So you didn't use this to spike my orange juice _and_ cause me to puke my guts out in here while you tried to put the moves on my boyfriend outside?" Pocketing the bottle in her cargo shorts, Kelly then crossed her arms and shook her head slowly. "Go figure," she remarked. "You haven't changed a bit, Rebekka. You're still the same cruel, stuck-up, scheming, manipulative, two-faced, bullying backstabber you were in school."

Rebekka then began laughing derisively at Kelly's comments, as if she had listened to a joke. "That's _sooo_ totally rich coming from you," she said snidely. "I think you forgot about how you stole Bobby Foreman from me near the end of Grade 11."

"I never 'stole' Bobby Foreman from you," Kelly countered. "He dumped you after he found out you were cheating on him with another guy, and he had every right to ask out whoever he wanted after he gave you the boot. He wanted to show you that you couldn't have everything your way all the time, even if you were part of the 'popular' crowd at school."

"That was his mistake!" Rebekka then spat. "Bobby belonged to me, not anyone else! And it was _your_ mistake to take him from me in the first place! Frankly, I don't even know what he ever even saw in you, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks!"

"I see," Kelly remarked with a raised eyebrow. "So according to you, anyone whose parents earn less than a six-figure income per parent per year comes from 'the wrong side of the tracks'. You need to get a new song to sing 'cause that one's so old, I think they're playing it on oldies radio now."

"Joke all you want, but it's still true," Rebekka stated bluntly. "Not only _are_ you from the wrong side of the tracks," she added with increasing venom, "you are a loser and you always have been. You are NOBODY to me! I made your life in senior year hell, and I can do it to you again without thinking twice!"

"So if I'm such a 'loser' to you," Kelly said, "then how come Bobby chose me over you? Is that selective memory of yours going into overdrive again, Rebekka?"

"It doesn't matter now," Rebekka said. "I'm still going to get the last laugh on you, like I always do. Since you took Bobby from me, I'm going to take your boyfriend from you. A boyfriend for a boyfriend, that's how it works!"

Deep down inside, Kelly began seething with anger from Rebekka's threat to steal David away from her, but she found a way to channel that anger. "That's what makes what you called me all the more ironic," she pointed out to the snobby blonde girl. "You accuse me of being a 'whore', but everyone at school knew about your history of stealing other girls' boyfriends and dumping them when they were either of no more use to you or when the next hot guy came along. You just never got called out on it until Bobby beat you to the punch by dumping you when he found out about you and that exchange student from England. Face it, Rebekka, everyone knew that _you_ were the biggest whore the school ever had!"

Rebekka's mouth then dropped open with a gasp, offended that Kelly had called her on her hypocritical ways. She then swung her open right hand toward Kelly to slap her in the face, but a quick-thinking Kelly blocked the slap and immediately countered by throwing a punch that connected with Rebekka's nose, knocking the queen bee back against the wall.

"How's it feel to have 'nobody' punch you in the face, huh?" Kelly said to Rebekka, who acted surprised that, after all the abuse she heaped on Kelly earlier, she became the subject of well-deserved retaliation by the fed-up redhead.

"_Ow_, by dose!" an indignant Rebekka whined as she put both hands to her nose, which was now bleeding thanks to Kelly's punch. "Dab it, you broke by dose!"

"Oh, get over yourself, you'll live," Kelly said before she turned to walk away toward the washroom door. Stopping a moment and turning back to look at Rebekka one more time, she then warned her old enemy, "And stay away from my boyfriend, bitch!" before turning again and walking out the door.

Before Kelly had left, Rebekka went over to lean over a sink thanks to the nosebleed she got from getting punched there. Grabbing a tissue from her purse, she packed one nostril with some of it and then pinched her nose to stem the bleeding. Looking into the mirror above the sink and scowling, Rebekka then thought to herself, _This isn't over, Kelly, not by a longshot. Sooner or later, I __**will **__have my revenge!_

* * *

><p>After leaving the washroom, Kelly then returned to her and David's booth. Noticing that Kelly looked unnerved and a little angry, David asked, "Kelly, are you okay?"<p>

"Can we leave here, David, please?" Kelly said quietly. "I can't stay here for dinner, not after Rebekka showed up here."

"Uh-oh," David said, realizing what was bothering Kelly. "So she was the one who was harassing you ever since we got to the mall earlier?" he asked as he got up and walked over to her. Kelly confirmed David's suspicion about Rebekka with a nod, then she briefly explained to him about the confrontation in the washroom between the two girls.

With that, David called his father over to the booth to talk to him. "Is something wrong, son?" Mr. Hughes asked.

"Kelly and I have to get out of here," David explained. "There's a girl over in the women's washroom right now, dealing with a nosebleed. Her name's Rebekka Drake. That same girl was following me and Kelly around town earlier today and causing trouble for Kelly."

"She also used this to spike the orange juice I ordered earlier, to make me get sick," Kelly added as she took out the syrup of ipecac bottle she had taken from Rebekka and handed it to Mr. Hughes to examine.

"Is there anything you need me to do?" Mr. Hughes said, offering to help deal with Rebekka.

"Sure," David replied. "See if you can detain her here until Kelly and I are safely away elsewhere. After that, I'll call you to let you know where we are, then you can show her the door."

"Not a problem," Mr. Hughes agreed. "We'll keep her here a while by offering to treat her nosebleed while you and Kelly make your getaway." David then thanked his father for the help as he and Kelly prepared to head out the door, when Mr. Hughes called to his son again.

"Yeah, Dad?" David responded as he turned around.

"Here, take my car," Mr. Hughes said as he handed David the keys to his own car, trading those with the keys to David's car. "If that girl followed your car around town, she's going to know what your car looks like and I don't want her following you and Kelly again or tracking you down."

"Okay," David said. "Thanks again, Dad," he added before he and Kelly turned and went out the restaurant's front doors.

* * *

><p><strong>Well, this marks the last time that we'll hear from Rebekka in this story, but the vow she made near the end pretty much guarantees that she'll be making a return in a later story to stir up more trouble for Kelly - and who knows what else? Meanwhile, the next chapter wraps things up as Kelly tells David about the origins of her feud with Rebekka.<strong>


	5. A Late Night in Oak Bay

**CHAPTER 5 - A LATE NIGHT IN OAK BAY**

**After a bit of a delay due to occasional bouts of writer's block, here's the last chapter, where Kelly tells David about how her feud with old high school rival Rebekka began, going more in-depth into Kelly's back story and explaining what turned her into the type of person we see her as now on _Stoked_. This chapter contains references to the _Stoked_ episode "Board and Confused", my earlier fics "Luck Has a Way", "Starstruck and Wavestruck" and "Grandma's Got Stoke!", and a pop culture reference to a certain horror writer's most famous work.**

* * *

><p>After they left the Ocean Blue restaurant, Kelly and David, with aid from David's father, were able to evade Rebekka when Mr. Hughes loaned them his car while his staff tended to Rebekka and her nosebleed back at the restaurant. After parking the car at a nearby parkade, Kelly and David went for dinner at one of the Chinese restaurants in Victoria's Chinatown district, then to take Kelly's mind off of the events of that afternoon, they went to see a romantic comedy at the Odeon Theatre on Yates Street. Thankfully for Kelly and David, they had no further trouble from Rebekka as they did not see her again for the rest of that night, thanks to the couple's escape strategy.<p>

Following the movie, Kelly and David drove around for a while before they arrived in the neighboring suburb of Oak Bay, just east of Victoria. After driving along the town's main business street, Oak Bay Avenue, then making a few more turns on other streets, David parked on Beach Drive, where the local marina was located, then took Kelly over to where his father had a luxury motor yacht moored at one of the marina docks. While Kelly was impressed with the size of the boat and its amenities (including a galley, dining and living space, a widescreen TV and stereo, bedrooms and ensuite bathrooms), she was simply happy to know that she had a refuge to go to with David, to avoid further dealings with her hated rival Rebekka.

Kelly and David were now on the yacht's sundeck, watching the western sky as the sun set and dusk set in while they drank glasses of ginger ale David had brought up from the galley. "Feeling better now after what you went through today?" David asked Kelly after sipping from his glass.

"Yeah, I am," Kelly replied. "To be honest, I just wasn't expecting Rebekka to show up out of nowhere. I was sure I'd left that part of my past behind me once I graduated last month."

"It was pretty unexpected, all right," David agreed. "So if you don't mind me asking, how did that whole mess between you and her get started in the first place? If you'd rather not talk about it, I'll understand..."

"No, it's okay, I don't mind," Kelly said, starting to flash back to the events that led up to the beginning of her feud with Rebekka. "I'd known Rebekka since she started at my school at the beginning of Grade 10 after she transferred from her old private school. We weren't really what you'd call friends, but she knew me from some of my classes and we were cordial enough to each other to say hi and talk a bit in the hallway in between classes or in the cafeteria at lunch.

"We also took the same gym classes, but that was the extent of what we had in common with athletics," Kelly continued. "She was the captain of the cheerleading squad while I played on the basketball and softball teams. We also ran in different circles as far as friends went. Being who she was, she hung out with the 'popular' crowd and had a little clique that she was the leader of. And like you'd expect from a clique, they were a bunch of stuck-up, snobby rich girls who went out of their way to make trouble for classmates that they didn't like."

"Sounds about right," David said with a chuckle. "I dealt with a few girls like that back when I was in high school. So anyway, how'd you start crossing swords with her?"

"It was close to the end of the school year in Grade 11 last year, when it was close to time for final exams," Kelly went on. "I was going into the cafeteria for lunch one time when I walked in on an argument going on in another part of the room between Rebekka and her boyfriend at the time, Bobby Foreman. Everyone in the room was watching as Rebekka and Bobby had it out pretty loudly. It was during the argument that I learned, and so did everyone else present, that Bobby found out Rebekka had cheated on him with an English exchange student who was in her social studies class. They traded some really heated words between them before Bobby told Rebekka he'd had enough and he was done with her, then Rebekka stormed out of the cafeteria.

"A couple of days later, I was in the library during a free period when Bobby walked up to me and said hi," Kelly continued. "I was really surprised that he would make time to talk to me because he was the star quarterback on our school's football team and a very popular guy around school. But there he was, saying hi to me, so I had to say hi right back. We talked for a bit at my table after that, then he asked me if I'd like to join him for coffee at a nearby Starbucks after school. I was hesitant to accept at first, but he assured me that he and Rebekka were finished as a couple after he found out about her cheating, so I said sure, I'd love to go.

"But while we were at Starbucks, I think one of Rebekka's friends may have seen me and Bobby there together and snitched to her about it," Kelly then explained. "The next day at school between classes, Rebekka confronted me in the hallway, claiming that Bobby was hers and told me to stay away from him. Then I reminded her about Bobby dumping her and told her point-blank that she didn't own him and he was free to date whoever he wanted, and if it meant he wanted to ask me out, so be it. And then, she warned me that I made 'the biggest mistake of my life' and that I'd regret it."

"_Ohh_, that doesn't sound too good," David said while Kelly paused to take a sip of her ginger ale. "So what happened from there?"

"Nothing happened right away after that, but the start of Grade 12 last September was when it all really began," Kelly carried on. "The first week back at school, Rebekka started a smear campaign against me with help from her loyal followers, Taylor and Holly. She tried spreading false rumors about me and she tried to use her influence to block me from taking part in school athletics and other activities. She and her friends also pulled a lot of the same type of crap on me then that she did to me earlier today, like dumping drinks over my head between classes, painting 'Kelly is a whore' on my hallway locker door, or getting either Taylor or Holly to purposely play rough against me in gym class while she sat on the sidelines and gloated.

"After about three weeks of this, I told Bobby what was going on and who was behind it," Kelly continued. "Up 'til then, Rebekka and her clique were getting away with their behavior against me, while I was the one who got burned if I retaliated against them, thanks to them playing the teachers for chumps by acting all innocent and playing the victim card. But when I told Bobby, he stepped up for me and went up and told Rebekka to back off, or else he'd start revealing some of her other dirty little secrets. Bobby also told those same teachers what was going on, and after that - I don't know if they were more willing to listen to him because of his influence as a star athlete, or what, but some of the teachers were more willing to be in my corner. It also helped that I had a couple of friends of my own, Paige and Natalie, to back me up when I needed it against Rebekka, Taylor and Holly. Rebekka didn't like that at all, but I think she knew she didn't dare cross Bobby and she wasn't willing to press her luck with the more sympathetic teachers either."

David laughed a little on hearing what Kelly told him about the payback Rebekka got. "I bet she wasn't too happy that her ex put her in her place," he commented.

"No, she wasn't," Kelly said with a giggle. "With Bobby, Paige and Natalie in my corner, I found it in me to stand up to Rebekka and fight back against her. I wasn't going to let her push me around anymore and I made that clear to her, but it's not to say that she wasn't going to push it against me by manipulating teachers that were more willing to turn a blind eye to her bad behavior."

"Uh-oh," David said. "So did she try something to push her luck with you?"

"Nothing major really happened 'til around the time of my school's Homecoming event in early November," Kelly added. "Rebekka was planning to run for Homecoming Queen that year and she tried to buy the election by promising to have her dad donate money to build new bleachers for the athletic field if she won. I told my friends that I didn't like the idea of Rebekka trying to win Homecoming Queen that way, so Paige, Natalie and Bobby encouraged me to run for Homecoming Queen too. I hadn't thought about taking part in Homecoming other than going to the Homecoming Dance with Bobby, but I didn't want to see Rebekka run unopposed for Homecoming Queen and win by acclamation, so when Paige and Natalie nominated me to run, I accepted and ran on a community service campaign platform.

"To no one's surprise, Rebekka wasn't happy that I was running against her for Homecoming Queen, so she did whatever she could to try to sabotage my campaign," Kelly then said. "I was worried at first that I wouldn't be able to overcome her dirty tricks, but my friends kept me focused and helped me keep my campaign running smoothly. Because of that, the wide lead Rebekka had over me at first got narrowed to a dead heat by the time of the Homecoming Dance."

"Good to hear," David said. "Sounds like it gets promising for you. So what happened after that?"

"During the campaign, I heard that Rebekka asked a boy she was dating at the time to write the campaign speech she was going to give at the dance," Kelly told David. "Then a few days before the dance, Paige found that Rebekka was planning to ask another boy to be her Homecoming date instead of her speech writer. Paige and I then went to the first boy and told him what Rebekka planned to do for Homecoming. He didn't believe us at first, but thankfully Paige had used her cell phone to secretly record Rebekka talking with Taylor, and we proved to him that her Homecoming plans didn't include him. He was pretty ticked to hear that Rebekka was only using him for her Homecoming Queen campaign, so when we suggested that he do a little 'rewrite' on her campaign speech to pay her back, he gladly agreed.

"Then at the Homecoming Dance, when Rebekka went up on stage in the gym and gave her campaign speech," Kelly continued, "she only got a couple of lines into it before she found out that her speech had been sabotaged by her speech writer, so she threw it aside and ad-libbed an attack speech against me that sounded, well, bitter and spiteful, and it didn't go over too well with the partygoers. Then I went up and gave my campaign speech about civic pride and doing what you can to improve your hometown. Even after the speeches were done, I didn't really expect to beat Rebekka, but when all the votes were tallied, it took me by surprise when I was announced as the new Homecoming Queen and almost everyone in the gym started cheering."

"Nice," David said with a chuckle, having been kept riveted by Kelly's Homecoming story and the account of her rivalry with Rebekka up to that point. "I'm glad you won Homecoming Queen that time, Kelly. You showed Rebekka that her money, her influence and her dirty tricks weren't going to buy her that crown and you put her in her place."

"The win didn't come without a price, though," Kelly pointed out. "Rebekka wasn't going to let my win go without getting one last shot in on me. After I went up on stage to be crowned, while I picked Bobby to be my Homecoming King, I saw Rebekka in the front of the crowd near the stage, signalling to someone offstage. Next thing I knew, just after Bobby came on stage, I felt what I think was molasses come down on my head from above, then a shower of feathers came down on top of that. Next thing I knew, I heard laughter coming from Rebekka and Holly at the front of the crowd and from Taylor when I spotted her offstage, and I realized that Rebekka had pulled a 'Carrie' on me."

"_Ooohh_, not good," David remarked. "I think saying you were mad about that would be an understatement."

"Not even close," Kelly said. "I was really pissed about it 'cause she publicly humiliated me with that prank and ruined the gown my folks got for me for the dance. Thankfully, I found out later that another member of Rebekka's clique, a girl named Dusty, had had a change of heart about taking part in the prank and she told the principal and one of the teachers chaperoning the dance. Because of the prank, Taylor and Holly got suspended from school for a week and got a month of afterschool detention, and because Rebekka was the one who masterminded the prank, the principal suspended her for the rest of the school year, right in front of everyone at the dance.

"Then after the principal left," Kelly added, "Rebekka had a meltdown and threw a fit in front of everyone, yelling after the principal that she was going to sue the school for suspending her. I finally had enough of Rebekka's crap, so I stepped up to give her a little payback of my own when I caught up to her during her rant and I decked her with a punch in the face, just dropped her to the gym floor with one shot. After that, nearly everyone in the gym started cheering and congratulating me on standing up to Rebekka and giving her some well-deserved just desserts, while she tucked tail and took off with Taylor and Holly, knowing she finally got beaten."

David was now laughing as he heard about Kelly exacting her revenge against Rebekka for the cruel prank the queen bee had pulled on her at Homecoming. "Couldn't have happened to someone more deserving," he commented.

"Rebekka still wasn't willing to go down without a fight though," Kelly said. "The week after Homecoming, we heard that she got her dad to threaten a lawsuit against the school if the suspension wasn't lifted. The principal didn't budge though, and he threatened a countersuit against Rebekka for all her assaults and bullying of other students at my school, so her old man had no choice but to back down and drop the suit. Last I heard, Rebekka was transferred back to her old private school to finish out her senior year and graduate from there. And with Dusty quitting them after Homecoming and without Rebekka around to lead them, her clique's reign of terror was pretty much history since what was left of them lost most of their clout among the student body."

"Awesome," David then said. "You must've become really popular with everyone at your school after you knocked Rebekka down a few pegs in their eyes."

"I wish I could say I was happy about that," Kelly admitted, "but thanks to Rebekka, she caused me to be less trusting of people, other than my family and friends, than I had been before she came along. Even before she started making trouble for me, she even influenced the way I saw all rich girls, as being spoiled, selfish, snobby and scheming trust fund kids like her who enjoyed making others miserable. It was that attitude that influenced the way I saw Lo when I first met her last year when I started working at Surfer's Paradise. To me at first, Lo seemed like a tamer version of Rebekka minus the bullying and the clique to lead around and do her bidding.

"But the final straw came around the time after final exams, just before graduation last month," Kelly said. "Bobby and I were taking a walk on the beach in Departure Bay after buying some pop at a store across the street from the beach. It was our one-year anniversary since we started dating and we were enjoying our walk when Bobby dropped a bombshell on me at one point. He told me that he'd accepted a football scholarship from the University of Ottawa and he'd be moving there right after graduation, to take a summer job there first before school started. I asked him what that meant for our relationship, and he told me that he wasn't sure it would survive such a long distance between us. It upset me to hear that we would have to break up, but he was a gentleman about it and he told me I was the best girlfriend he'd ever had. After he took me home, we kissed one more time, then after he said goodbye and left, I waited until he was gone before I started crying on the front porch."

"Sorry to hear that," a sympathetic David said. "But how does Rebekka figure into that?"

"It happened when I was with Paige and Natalie in the food court at Woodgrove Mall that weekend," Kelly explained. "Somehow, Rebekka found out that Bobby and I broke up and she called Taylor to tell her what happened. It turned out Taylor was at Woodgrove at the same time when she spotted us at the food court, so she walked right up to our table and 'passed along a message' from Rebekka. Turned out that message was nothing more than Taylor passing her cell phone to me with Rebekka on the other end of the line, and she rubbed my breakup with Bobby right in my face and she was just enjoying gloating about it. So I told Rebekka to take a flying leap and I hung up, then I got up and calmly told Taylor to walk away before she did anything else she'd regret, and she did, but not without getting one more dig in on me as she left and walked away laughing. My friends did their best to try and make me feel better, but between losing Bobby to his move east and all the crap Rebekka put me through, it put me in a foul mood after that.

"It's not something I'm proud of now, but when I returned to Surfer's Paradise at the end of last month, I carried that mood over and took out my frustrations on the new junior staff when they arrived in time for the new tourist season," Kelly continued. "When I found out that Lo was joining the junior staff as punishment from her dad for that out-of-control party of hers, it gave me an excuse to give her an especially hard time when she slacked off on the job because I saw her the same way I saw Rebekka back then, as spoiled, rich and entitled - and I even told that to Lo at one point when she tried to get out of working for me.

"I still had that attitude when I first met you at the DR," Kelly then confessed. "But I didn't want you to see that from me, so I had to try being nice when I served you and I told you about the hassles I was going through that week. It was great that you were understanding and you gave me that big tip to make up for the crappy work week I had, so I wanted to make a good impression on you by continuing to be nice around you. Then the more that happened, the more I actually wanted to be nice around others again, much like I was before Rebekka started her feud with me. Then after I cleaned up my act, it started catching on with my DR staff and they improved their work ethic, especially Lo. That's around the time Lo bought the new TV and satellite for the hotel staff house, and then I found out from Fin about Lo being the 'secret angel' for the staff with their meals. The things she did after I changed my attitude were what changed my opinion about Lo, and made me realize she's nothing like Rebekka after all."

After her long spiel, Kelly then turned to look at David. "But I hope after everything I've told you, that it doesn't change your opinion of me," she told him, feeling worried that David would not think as highly of her since confessing to him about what she had been like just before they met. "Looking back now, I don't like that I ended up turning into the one thing in this world I hate the most - becoming like Rebekka because of her influence. She just brought out the worst in me when she was around me."

David then smiled and laughed a little. "It's okay, Kelly," he responded. "I'm not going to think badly of you because of what you said. If anything, I really appreciate your honesty by telling me all that. If you were going against being the kind of person you really are, you had your reasons for it after locking horns with Rebekka. She just sounds like the kind of girl who'd bring out the worst in anybody she met if she wanted to."

Kelly was greatly relieved to hear David's reassurance of her. "Good, I'm glad," she said with a nervous giggle, putting her left hand to her heart as she said it.

"Let's look at it like this," David then added. "All your troubles with Rebekka aside, you do all you can to be a better person and feel good about yourself, and you always have. Like you told me, you played in sports, you danced in ballet and tango, you volunteered in community service, you took up surfing, you successfully manage a restaurant...and hey, you even got to be a Homecoming Queen and you earned that crown fairly. Nothing Rebekka says or does can ever take any of that away from you."

"_Mmm_, good to know," a pleased Kelly remarked.

"I'll tell you something else too," David said. "Don't worry about Rebekka saying that she was going to try to steal me away from you. There's no chance of that happening because she's not my type. I used to date girls like her when I was in high school and it always turned out the same. None of those kind of girls impressed me because they were all shallow, self-centered and concerned only about money, appearances and flaunting what they had. I wanted to find the kind of girl who wasn't a Rebekka type, and I lucked out on finding her when I met you at Surfer's Paradise."

"Really?" Kelly asked.

"Of course," David said. "I don't care that you're not a 'trust fund girl', or about what kind of background you have. I'll admit I was attracted to you in the beginning because you're really pretty, but I also think you're smart and funny, you believe in working hard to earn what you want, you think well of your friends and you're loyal to them, and above all, you're nice - at least to those who deserve it, anyway."

Kelly laughed at David's last comment. "Thank you, you got a point there," she said. "And how about Lo? What do you think of her?"

"I think she's come a long way from what you said she used to be," David said. "It's great that she's also doing what she can to become a better person. After what you told me about your hotel's manager and especially after I saw the staff house where you're staying, Lo's really kind, sweet and caring to be helping out her friends and the rest of the staff in her own way.

"As for Rebekka," David added, "based on all I've heard about her and after meeting her at the Ocean Blue, I'm convinced that all she knows how to do is cheerlead, spend her parents' money and make trouble for others. Far as I'm concerned, she's far down on my list of people I'd want to have as a friend."

"Very true," Kelly agreed. "I just hope I won't have to see her again after today, if I'm lucky."

"I'll see what I can do to help with that," David then offered. "Since Rebekka said she spends time in Whistler, I'll keep tabs on her to see when she's over there, so you can come back to town on the weekends when she's not here. When she is here otherwise, I'll head over to Sunset Beach instead to see you, that way you won't have to cross paths with her again."

"That's awesome," said a grateful Kelly, who then snuggled up to David. "Thanks David, I really appreciate it."

"Not a problem," David responded with a grin before he reached over to turn on the radio he had brought with him onto the sundeck and tuned it to one of the local Victoria stations. When he found the station he wanted, he came upon the beginning of an old Neil Young song. "Hey, right on, some old Neil Young," he said after finding the song. "Seems almost apropos, too. This tune's called 'Midnight on the Bay', we're in Oak Bay and it'll be midnight in about another hour."

"Let's just listen to the song, okay?" Kelly said as she leaned her head on David's shoulder and put her left arm around his waist. "I want to enjoy this moment while it lasts."

"Sure, I'm cool with that," David agreed as he put his left arm around Kelly's shoulders and they sat back against the boat's windshield. As the couple watched the night sky and its full moon, the lights of the marina and the boats moored nearby, Kelly looked at David and asked him, "So, you really think I'm pretty?"

"Absolutely," David replied, then he and Kelly shared a kiss before a contented Kelly resumed leaning her head against his shoulder and they continued watching the scenery around them while the laid-back sounds of Neil Young continued to fill the night air.

**THE END**


End file.
